The Third Bullet

When Stephen Hunter’s fictional hero Bob Lee Swagger came to bookstores with the 1993 novel Point of Impact most of the critics attributed the character’s success to Hunter’s vivid writing style, especially as applied to the lore of the gun. As much or more than any other writer alive, Hunter understands that firearms and the men who wield them, what he calls the American Gunman — though not in the pejorative sense — constituted a major cultural theme in the history of the United States. He is Shane riding into a frontier town, or John Dillinger wreathed in Thompson submachine gun smoke or Audie Murphy holding a battalion of Nazi infantry at bay. The American Gunman was a figure of myth at par with Achilles and his nodding plumes and Hunter hit the mother lode in depicting him.

But what set apart Bob Lee Swagger in 1993 was something else. He was more than just another portrayal of that myth. In Bob Lee Swagger, who we first find holed up in a trailer in Arkansas with nothing but his wits, rifle and vague unease, Hunter had created the perfect symbol of a generation betrayed. Swagger in his beginnings was really all those Vietnam vets whose superlative skill, sacrifice and prowess had been wasted by the self-appointed Best and the Brightest, sent to their doom for reasons that were too clever by half and which even the puppeteers had themselves forgotten.

So when Bob Lee Swagger is set up as a patsy for the assassination of a left wing Third World clergyman by Ivy League covert operatives pursuing their own doubtful agenda in Point of Impact the reader feels the betrayal anew. When as Swagger takes apart his opponents in the finale you can imagine a certain demographic of readers were not only reading a story, but cheering as they took vicarious revenge for the outrage perpetrated upon their idealism and youth.

It is perhaps no coincidence that Swagger’s success came shortly after the popularity of the Rambo movies. It was a time when the public was beginning to realize that mainstream media Vietnam and Cold War narratives were not exactly the real story. And Swagger was the beneficiary of that growing awareness.

The real attraction of Bob Lee Swagger, something Hunter would occasionally forget — but not for long – was not in the action scenes he featured in, but in who he was. To follow the Swagger character in those times before the Internet was to participate in an act of vicarious rebellion against the Narrative; to secretly hum the literary equivalent of that once popular song whose refrain went “take this job and shove it. I ain’t working here no more.”

Although all of the Bob Lee Swagger novels are entertaining, only two reach the level of Point of Impact. There is Time to Hunt, which is arguably the best and again a return to the lost threads of the Vietnam War, and then there is his latest novel, The Third Bullet due out in January, 2013 of which I have an advance copy.

Although set in the approximate present, The Third Bullet is more about the 1960s than any other of Hunter’s recent books. It is a return as it were to the Origin of Everything. The dramatic hook is nothing less than the central mystery of modern American history, the JFK assassination. What happened on That Day in Dallas, the day which had such fateful consequences for Bob the Nailer’s generation? And who better to answer the question and unravel its final mysteries than Bob Lee Swagger himself?

‘Bob the Nailer’ understands guns and in Hunter’s view the key to decoding what happened in Dealey Plaza 1963 is to know what guns are capable and not capable of doing. So about a quarter of the book is spent watching Swagger being forced to think through the problem afresh and driven to conclude by the timeline, history and above all ballistics that not only were the Warren Commissioners wrong but nearly all the conspiracy buffs were as well.

Of course you’re not expected to believe the theory, which is a literary device, but it is tribute to Hunter’s narrative skill that what emerges is at least as credible as any of the other theories that have been proposed. The rest of the book naturally consists of watching the developing duel of wits between Bob Lee Swagger and the unseen enemy mastermind. They include the set-piece action scenes for which Hunter is famous. There are shootouts on American streets, in a Russian city, and of course the showdown on the final distant hilltop which is the trademark Boss Battle of Swagger novels.

But what puts The Third Bullet on the level with Point of Impact and Time to Hunt is that it concludes the Bob Swagger story. Although I leave it to the reader to discover whether our hero physically survives in the plotline there is the definite sense that the arc for which Bob the Nailer has been dramatically created has been successfully and satisfyingly fulfilled. The character who was born in Point of Impact and who grows to maturity in Time to Hunt has achieved in The Third Bullet what only the protagonists in successful literary serials can do: put the roof on a complete fictional universe; round out a virtual world that makes sense in its entirety and make it a place that we are content to revisit again and again just to see if everything was where we left it. If there’s a Pantheon for fictional American Gunmen, then Swagger has made it in.

The Third Bullet due out in January, 2013 — not coincidentally the 50th anniversary year of That Day in Dallas.

I think one of the driving factors behind the conspiri-freaks in general, and particularly with JFK, is that it is SO difficult to accept that some of the grandest turning points in human history can occur just by random chance. In the 30′s, Hitler was late to a meeting that would have seen him killed had he arrived nine minutes earlier. Hinckley’s bullet missed killing Ronald Reagan by about a quarter-inch.

And given that today’s post-modern left was in many ways aborne when “those horrible right-wingers killed Prince John”, it is truly stunning to consider that the very contours of Western Civilization, and it’s possible future in entirety, are what they are in the year 2012 because of one scummy, deranged little maggot with chicken-greasy fingers.

Somewhat OT: I’ve taken to saying “Thanks for winning the Cold War” to Vietnam-era veterans. I think it’s accurate, altho it’s disconcerting to some of them. To the vets: is that patronizing or otherwise offensive?

Across many decades, my mind’s eye sees Professor Samuel Beer pacing the lecture hall stage at Harvard, talking about the accession of Henry II to the throne of England in 1154 and the end of 20 years of anarchy.

Beer’s interest is not antiquarian, because he is focused on timeless principles and especially on their contemporary relevance. He uses Henry II to introduce the class to the concept of political legitimacy, which he defined in his writing as “the claim of a government to the obedience and loyalty of their citizens/subjects,” and the underlying principles that determine how the right to make this claim is gained or lost….

Gallup and Rasmussen are telling us that the Founders were right to posit that a breakdown of the limits of government would cause a breakdown of consent. In response to the question of whether the current government has the consent of the governed, only 22 percent of likely voters say “yes.” The partisan divide is marked; Democrats split evenly, but only 8 percent of Republicans say yes. These are scary numbers, particularly when one considers that many of the “no consent” Democrats are probably on the left, denying the legitimacy of a government that does not do more for them. Also scary is that the political establishments of both parties seem oblivious.

So Beer’s time-traveling students would have little trouble deciding that the United States has a legitimacy crisis. They could produce competent term papers on how it arose. The big question, of course, is what happens next. That is indeterminable. Unstable political arrangements often continue for a long time, until some crisis pushes them over the edge. France faced severe fiscal problems in 1789, and Russia’s tsars might still be with us if they had avoided the strains of World War I. So the United States might be pushed into full-blown chaos only by serious fiscal dysfunction or some national security disaster. Unfortunately, neither of these possibilities appears remote.

The urgent question is how to find a road back to stability and consent without going through a crisis and consequent upheaval. This is a mystery, since the set of societies that have faced and surmounted legitimacy crises without turmoil is a limited one. In later years, Beer added to his syllabus the topic of the great reform acts in England during the 19th century, but that example seems almost unique. Most societies must endure considerable pain.

In that respect the effect of the JFK assassination was not the consequence of the actual murder, although readers of The Third Bullet will find a fascinating parable which argues that an alternative history where JFK survives might not necessarily have been the best of possible worlds. It’s principle effect was that it shattered a kind of idyll and thereby contributed over time to the debate over legitimacy which DeLong talks about today.

There’s a difference between the Day The Music Died and the Day I Heard Milli Vanilli sing. The myth of Camelot and perhaps even more, the fall of the myth of Camelot played their part in today’s unfolding drama. Events like the Moon Landing, the JFK Assassination and 9/11 are markers which we retrospectively associate with long term changes that we observe. Things somehow begin there, though as even Hunter’s fictional novel argues, when we arrive at the actual spot there are no actual beginnings in evidence. It is all seemingly ordinary. But then the extraordinary is simply the ordinary with momentous consequences.

To what “conspiracy” did John Hinkley belong? You know, the man Andrew X just mentioned who came within a quarter inch of killing Reagan?

I think the conspiracy thing with the JFK assassination came about in large part because of the obstinate refusal by so many people to accept that it was a commie who killed JFK, and not some “crazy right-winger.” You know, that was the narrative even in 1963? I was in art class in high school when we got the awful news, and my art teacher, the prototypical ultraliberal, exclaimed to me in particular “goes to show you that those Birchers are better shots then we are!”

Kennedy was only Lee Harvey Oswald’s second target, the first being an unsuccessful attempt to kill Gen. (ret.) Edwin Walker, leader of the John Birch Society that my teacher was convinced was “behind it all.” Oswald’s own brother had stated that Lee Harvey had intended to be a “professional political assassin.” As to his “commie” roots, it is well-known that he had defected to the USSR, and there is footage of him explaining why he helped start the “Fair Play for Cuba Committee.”

I have zero problem believing that a lone gunman in a still-free 1960′s America not as security-conscious as we are now could indeed pull off this killing with a mail-order rifle. The conspiracy buffs remind me of those people who can’t seem to believe that the pyramids and Stonehenge were built without “alien intervention.”

And again, remember the nearly-successful John Hinkley, a thoroughly pathetic and generally inept individual who makes both Oswald and Gavrilo Princip look like masterminds by comparison.

I wonder if Americans would have a different mentality if the majority of their history was using in weapons like swords, knives or spears. Having trained a little with a katana I can tell you that I would not want to be within 10 feet of a trained practitioner of that weapon if attacked. But, that is probably the same with a knife or spear. Is there something about firing at someone from a distance as opposed to be up close and personal during the attack? Is there something so different about a firearm whether it is a rifle, pistol or shotgun that changes your mentality? Does it make us more even in a fight or is the margin of error reduced so much so that even lousy shots can get lucky and takes out a highly trained marksman?

I imagine that there were different skill levels of samurai in Japan, some much better than others. But somehow I think that the distance between a highly skilled samurai and mediocre one was greater than an expert shot and a mediocre one, especially on a battle field where waves of attackers were advancing. I guess my hypothesis is that maybe the rifle and pistol gave American men a greater sense of individual self-confidence. I might not be a trained fighter but if I have a pistol and have to face down and equally armed MMA thug who I know can cripple me… well at least I now have a chance with the pistol.

Is there something about firing at someone from a distance as opposed to be up close and personal during the attack?

Interesting musings, however: 18th century firearm warfare was usually almost as up close and personal as medieval warfare, which included the hurling of missiles such as flights of longbow arrows (archery was a main weapon system in feudal Japan as well). Remember that you had two opposing sides in their hotel-doorman uniforms facing each other accross the equivalent of the width — not the length — of a footbal field, firing muskets at each other in volleys, which usually ended in a very up close and personal bayonet charge. Keep in mind also that field artillery back then was primarily an anti-personnel weapon.

Gunpowder created two weapons systems. Large bore wall busters were first. The goal was to do more damage than a catapult.
Infantry arms grew because, while slightly more expensive than blades (sword, dagger, pike, axe etc.) they required less skill to use. In fact, as all BCers know, the long bow was a better weapon until after the American Civil War. Its problem was the tremendous skill and continued practice require to remain proficient.
@7 and @9 allude to this fact. The skilled samurai, knight, longbow man, etc. had to have, as the Brits say, private income, in order to have the time and energy to become good.
The three dollar colt Navy Revolver allowed a simple man to save up a couple of weeks wages and become more equal than before be it by lucky shot or, more likely, ambuscade. (Robin Hood in the forest still needed high skills, even in ambush. And he was no peasant.) Taking into account time not in the field or shop and the limits of his ammunition budget, the free citizen could take his practice and hone his skills in small doses and without need of a training facility.
That fire arms were beginning to reach this level of usefulness during the eighteenth century was not lost on the founding fathers. The right to bear arms is critical.
I recommend digging out your old copies of Churchill’s ‘History of the English Speaking Peoples’. He describes, as only he can, the difference between French peasants, not allowed to be armed, and the power of the longbow in England. English nobility were constantly aware of the cloth yard shaft, but also aware of the military power of the bow and the need for a yeoman peasantry, well trained. They chose compromise. France chose defeat.
ta

I am sure that it is true that the average Japanese could not hope to fight a samurai, nor could even a horde of average Japanese hope to oppose a much smaller number of samurai. But an American with a firearm could hope fight anyone, and a bunch of Americans with firearms could hope to overthrow a government.

Now, did that enter into our national psyche or rather did our national psyche create the guns?

Don Rodrigo:

I recommend a new book, September Hope, about the 82nd and 101st Airborne in Operation Market Garden. They describe what sounds like 19th century combat using 20th century weapons. Imagine charging 88MM guns and MG34′s with nought but M1 Garands and Thompsons.

@7; You will change your mind about the up close and personal opinion of gunfighting if you did a bit of research. I recommend you take a class from Uli Gebhard in CA or Dave Sauer or if you are lucky Roger Phillips.

A guy who has street skills will eat you and your gun unless you are already drawn and he is more than 20ft from you. The gun is not the great equalizer everyone thinks it is (a fallacy that makes for great movies). The mindset is your most important weapon.

Don @ 14. Not exactly. He was a free, well-to-do farmer, gentry, or early middle class if you will. Bowmen were not available but in their hundreds. In the ages of Agincort (sp?) Crecy and Pontier (again sp), most were still feudal peasants and pressed into arms by their lords and armed with what ever.
Yes, hobby and sport, encouraged by the crown, helped maintain interest. Hunting not so much. Game was already owned by the lord and poachers were generally not bow hunters, but trappers.

most were still feudal peasants and pressed into arms by their lords and armed with what ever.

With “whatever?” To a large extent true for the men-at-arms, but the bowmen were a distinct group because of their primary weapon, and were good at it. “Peasants” perhaps, but they practiced with their bows even when not in service; it was a sporting outlet even for the “peasant.” I qualified the hunting remark precisely because I knew that much of English/Welsh game was off limits, but not all (a disproportionate number of bowmen were Welsh by the time of Agincourt). The longbowman did not need special income or status to be a good longbowman, unlike knights. I have only that disagreement with your excellent post.

“I’ve taken to saying “Thanks for winning the Cold War” to Vietnam-era veterans.”

I’ll also chime in by offering my thanks for their service. The Vietnam veterans played a role in winning the Cold War even though the politicians lost the War in Vietnam. The Cold War really boiled down to an old fashioned pissing match. By its very nature, the Soviet Union was doomed to implode. Our task was not to surrender or otherwise be defeated prior to the Soviets imploding. We were triumphant mainly due to the courage of our veterans but also due to a fair amount of blind luck and the failure of the moonbats (they gave it their best shot).

Right, the firearm being the great equalizer. And yet of course, as someone might say, “haji can’t shoot”, even with a modern full-auto rifle. Still, modern weapons certainly discount modest differences in personal skill, presuming both sides can at least tell which one is the business end.

Anyone else watching the NBC show “Stars Earn Stripes”, in which eight civilian actors/athletes are teamed with eight military “ops” and go on little five-minute missions (it looks like on Camp Pendleton) firing automatic weapons? General Weasely W. Clark presiding? I have found it not as bad as it sounds. Todd Palin yes Sarah’s hubby one contestant?

I ‘m not learned enough on the subject to critique but the History Channel seem to have a nice special on the Longbow and its effect on feudal society in conjunction with the Ridley Scott movie Robin Hood (2010):
“http://www.dl4all.com/misc/280373-history-channel-the-real-robin-hood-2010-720p-hdtv-x264-dhd.html

To my mind, the Ridley Scott version was the best of all the Robin Hood movies – yes even better than the Errol Flynn/ Olivia DeHavilland version of the ’30′s.

That first law of motion is why the Warren commission is wrong. The dozens of other co-ink-see-dinks just add fuel to the fire. I have no favorite theory, I just understand that the Warren report is wrong. That would indicate a cover-up.

Not yet mentioned. It was the law in Britain for a while that qualified people should practice archery, I think an hour a week. Anyone who works in high level sport will tell you that ‘depth’ is necessary to field a great team and the law was there to create depth.

Maybe a law should be passed requiring us all to practice shooting for an hour a week. According to folk law most of the great marksmen of history started at an early age. Late starter volunteers and conscripts don’t make a great army as far as shooting skills go.

Interesting parallel. British Pm, Cameron, suggested a couple of weeks ago that all British school children, from grade school up, would be obliged to engage in competitive sports, perhaps they understand depth.

The Obama strategy is mobilize his base while depressing the turn out of Republican leaning voters. Basically, he hopes to win with 50 percent+1 of the vote or even less.

He has shown no sign of learning anything in the last three years. All the semi-sensible people have left. I predict a regulatory tsunami after the election regardless who wins but if it is Obama he’ll make it all stick (Romney will be called all sorts of bad names if tries to undo it). This may well cause a “Crisis of legitimacy” for Obama but the people taking the initial hits won’t be Obama supporters. Later, his supporters will also take a hit but the bad effects will be blamed on his opponents. They will be the “wreckers.” It is a pattern on the Left.

“Maybe a law should be passed requiring us all to practice shooting for an hour a week. According to folk law most of the great marksmen of history started at an early age. Late starter volunteers and conscripts don’t make a great army as far as shooting skills go.”

I’ve joined a gun club and trying to improve my shooting. Participating in a tournament helps and practice is everything. I dragged my wretched children in by the ears and insisted that they learn about shooting a rifle. My son prefers blasting aliens in “Halo” to shooting a real weapon. However to my son’s credit, he’s a better shot than me. That doesn’t say much since I came in dead last in the tournament (still shot good enough to qualify and won a nice jacket). My daughter is not a bad shot either.

hdgreene @ 24 said:

“[Obama] has shown no sign of learning anything in the last three years. All the semi-sensible people have left. I predict a regulatory tsunami after the election regardless who wins but if it is Obama he’ll make it all stick …”

If Obama wins, we will be “done like a dinner”. The only thing holding Obama back concerning his socialist agenda has been his desire to be reelected.

The pistol barrel is in the mouth of the American people and the hammer has been cocked. Will they pull the trigger?…

A Unified Convention Torn Apart?
August 28, 2012http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2012/08/28/a_unified_convention_torn_apart
RUSH: See, I understand it, but then on the other hand I don’t understand. They had a unified convention. Everybody showing up in Tampa was unified, get rid of Obama, let’s turn this country around, and now, whoever — Romney, the party, the RNC — whoever’s doing it started this rules fight that’s gonna tear everything apart. Like I say, on the one hand I understand it. On the other hand, it doesn’t make any sense. Not that I agree.

I know what they’re trying to do, folks. And if you’re just joining us, I don’t have time to replay or redo the whole first half hour of the program. Essentially, the establishment Republicans, the RNC, the GOP, the Romney campaign, want to change the rules of delegate selection. They want the presidential nominee in future years to be able to choose the actual delegates to the convention so that he owns them, so they do what he wants. And what it really is is an effort to eliminate grassroots people from the Republican convention. That’s really what this is all about. What that means is that the party has decided it doesn’t want to have to put up with a bunch of conservatives showing up, affecting the platform and all the other things that happen at the convention, including influencing the party.

One of our sponsors here, FreedomWorks, has been all over this rules business. In fact, I think they’ve been at the forefront of this. They just posted an update, and I’m gonna read it to you. “I just got off the phone with a concerned Florida activist, Laura Noble, who informed me that both of Florida’s Rules Committee members, Peter Feaman and Kathleen King, have been removed from the Rules committee and replaced with Romney-appointed delegates.

About 1990 or thereabouts I met a fellow Vietnam vet who looked into my eyes, shook my hand and said, “Welcome home.” It shattered me, and I wept openly (not my habit, I assure you!) right there in Bob’s Big Boy.

I am also always uncomfortable with “Thanks for your service.” Growing up it was inconceivable that I not serve. My brothers and I all volunteered, though one was turned away for flat feet. Service, particularly military service seemed to us no more than simple, bare duty. To me it was also a privilege for which I remain grateful.

In 1853 the Republican Party was a new, third Party representing the strong and growing Abolitionist sentiment in the country. The other two parties were the Democratic Party and the Whig Party. The Democratic Party went on to represent the interests of the pro-slavery minority (as they do today) and the Whigs simply disintegrated and vanished.

A third party, I should like to suggest, is not to be feared, so long as it is founded on sound Constitutional and moral principles.

Archery was outclassed well before the Civil War – it was certainly outclassed even before flintlocks became the norm. Some archers were exceptional, such as the English, but most of Europe was using crossbows already.

The weapon system is important, but the motivation is more so. For a time, Swiss pikes annihilated anyone in their way, and really all they had were pointy sticks.

Fiction is the conspirators’ confessional. They use it to confess crimes like murder and UFO cover-ups. Mr. Hunter is like a priest who helps clean your conscience, only priests don’t write books about what you have done wrong.

The Third Bullet due out in January, 2013 — not coincidentally the 50th anniversary year of That Day in Dallas.

There are secret files about Rudolf Hess that won’t be released until 2017, which is 75 yeas after those events (1942+75=2017). By that time everyone involved will be dead or faking dementia.

If you do not know the capabilities and limitations of the weapon, ANY weapon, you are in trouble before you start.

If you don’t know your own capabilities and limitations, you are doomed.

The “twenty foot rule” is inviolate. If your opponent is within 20 feet and intent on assaulting you, you WILL NOT have time to draw and present a decent defensive weapon before you are hit. Try it some time. It is common training in “street” martial arts circles.

Battles in pre-gunpowder days were fairly short and nasty. How long can anybody effectively swing a sword? How many times can an armoured cavalry horse be made to charge before it simply drops dead? How hot do you think you would get swinging a sword or mace whilst you were encased in armour and the necessary padding? After fifteen minutes whilst wrapped in padding and training with a bokuto (wooden katana), it gets VERY unpleasant.

The longbow had a much greater rate of fire than the crossbow. This was important when dealing with charges, especially cavalry charges. A reasonably competent longbow archer can get a shaft away every five or six seconds until they tire or run out of arrows. That is a lot of nasty, pointy things pouring out of a company (120) in a minute or so. A crossbow is a somewhat slower device.

Gunpowder effectively rendered the classic “castle” obsolete. Smashing iron balls into vertical stonework reduces the real-estate values pretty quickly. Notice that “post gunpowder” forts are low and have sloping walls, often with lawn-covered earthen banks covering the stonework. These targets are best attacked using explosive devices launched from high-angle toys like mortars. That, of course, means that the attackers have to get in close and are thus subject to counter-battery fire.

On the subject of long-bows, part of the reason for their success against opponents can be seen in the small iron head on the arrow. It resembles a semi-deflated NFL football: four flat-ish sides that come to a sharp point. The key is that the “square” at its largest section is a little larger than the diameter of the arrow shaft. Thus, the head acts as a blacksmith’s chisel to punch a square hole in the iron and leather layers. This enables the shaft to achieve considerable penetration. There is no need for barbs or razor-sharp “broadhead” blades as used in hunting. Having a sharp stick, that has recently been pulled out of the earth in front of the archer, driven through your guts will definitely ruin your week; usually after a long, agonising struggle with infection, assuming you were not “dipatched” by battlefield scavengers.

Minie balls driving swatches of dirty, sweat-soaked cloth into your body were not much of an improvement, health-wise, either.

Speaking of commies, and conspiratorial disinformation, and mass cognitive dissonance, and the pesky consent of the governed…With the strategy/tactics of politics by other means evolving to meet innovations in weaponry and propaganda.

As I was taking a little evening surf through Wikipedia (I know…) in hopes of gaining some further perspective on current events, I came across a quote attributed to V. Lenin that really stood out amidst all the faction-eating BS that ate up the years in Russia between the tepid February revolution and Stalin donning his patriotic Barbarossa hat and handing out NKVD (TM) ice axes to Mexican commies.

Anyway, I came across a section where Lenin was quoted as having a bit of an epiphany upon seeing the ruthless effectiveness of his great [re-favored] buddy Leon Trotsky’s miraculous re-organizational turnaround of what was the hopelessly bedraggled Red Army militias and revolutionized peasants which were engaged in a 16 front civil war against counter-revolutionary forces that had been whipping the Red Army’s collective arse like a rented congressional mule. Trotsky, who at the time was the newly appointed Commander of the Red Army, came up with the innovation of literally whipping the red forces into shape using -as yet un-liquidated- former Czarist officers with actual war-fighting experience under the direct supervision of their very own Soviet political commissars – who were given final authority to sign off on all military decisions…Just to make sure that the principles of the commie revolution were being adhered to and remained pure and all.

Anyway, Lenin observed:

“When Comrade Trotsky recently informed me that in our military department the officers are numbered in tens of thousands, I gained a concrete conception of what constitutes the secret of making proper use of our enemy … of how to build communism out of the bricks that the capitalists had gathered to use against us.”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Trotsky

I don’t know, but for some reason that just jumped out and struck me as rather contemporary to our times in many ways.

I mean we’ve got our czars, commissars; political correctness which is culturally enforced by a burgeoning nomenclatura who’ve been instructed and credentialed by a vanguard of long-suffering and misunderstood intellectuals; we’ve got Pravdas, and even Izvestias galore; favored industries and centrally regulated agricultural outputs; Hope-Change-Forward! thinking workers uniting…Progressively; street barricades a building, chanters a chantin’; Domestic security agencies proliferating and militarizing up for an as yet unspecified apocalypse; our co-equaller place amongst the glorious international order; complete with a global domino fall of socio-economic revolutions and such. Heck, there’s even the specter of a looming first and second-world economic collapse that will discredit those nasty ‘capitalists’ forever.

To 6. Don Rodrigo
I could more easily swallow the tale you weave if we were dealing with another John Hinkley incident. We aren’t, and IMO you too easily slide past the sticky part of the Dallas event, which consists of just two words: Jack Ruby.

I could buy a conspiracy but I can’t swallow a conspiracy poured over a plate of “weird coincidence”. That particular stew is too bitter for any but the most faithful and gullible of followers to swallow, plus of course the Warren Commission – but I repeat myself.

You are welcome to be at peace with the notion Mrs. Oswald’s son was uncommonly successful with his project in anarchy that day, but I’m not. Too many factions benefited from Kennedy’s passing for me to not have a nagging sense all is not as it seems.

My bothers and sisters in Vietnam and citizen patriots back home fought a holding action against the Soviets and the American hating Democrat malcontents who are now in political power. They did well against such odds considering they could only lawfully shoot one of their enemies.

Ronald Reagan won the cold War.

All I did was hold his coat; once in Rekjavik, and the last time…in the Capitol Rotunda.

#3 Hey X-man , is that deranged little maggot with the greasy chicken fingers you’re talking about Lee Harvey Obama? And I shouted out who killed the Kennedys when after all it was you and me.
I just re-read “A time to Hunt” What a classic read. The scenes of Bob Lee and Sgt. Donnie Fenn in the Central Highlands of Viet Nam are hallucinatory which at least in my sixties is a lot of the ambiance of Viet Nam. Other literary and cinema scenes like it are the final scenes in the novel “Matterhorn” which Karl Marlantes spent 30 years writing; almost all of Michael Herr’s “Dispatches”, the boat going up in the river in “Apocalypse Now” and the standdown scene in “Platoon” with the Elias faction of the platoon smoking weed and dancing to the “Tracks of my Tears” Herr wrote “instead of happy childhoods, we had Viet Nam”
Shoot, I think for most of us in the war, it was just a crazy time and place that ate a chunk of our lives. The cold war never entered much into my thinking. I’m more apt to remember flying in Hueys over countless bomb craters and punctuating long periods of hot, dirty boredom with moments of sheer terror . That and coming home and never being able to tell people exactly what that experience was like. That’s why when someone captures it in snippets it resonates in my soul. (Sorry for rambling)

If the generality of American youth had behaved like (say) Bill Clinton instead
of how we did behave, there could not have been a Reagan Presidency.
The Evil Empire would still be a going concern and our domestic situation would
suit (name deleted) fondest fantasy, the GOP would be well to the left of Harry Reid, personal weaponry would be denied civilians and so forth and so on.

We did all that could be done under the circumstances. In return for our efforts
we gained a victory, a costly and unusual one to be sure, but a victory nonetheless. Good enough for me.

In World War II a superbly trained and equipped German sniper was
playing havoc with American elements. Several men were dead already and
The Bloody Red Kraut was running up the score. It was a great example of what long-range aimed fire can accomplish.

Then a skinny little sharecropper’s kid—who was denied enlistment more than once before finally being accepted—- did the impossible and got within 20 yards or less of the sniper. Next time the Kraut tried a shot, Audie Murphy drilled him from side to side with a .30 Carbine.

“There is no such thing as a deadly weapon. There are only deadly men.”

I think the conspiracy thing with the JFK assassination came about in large part because of the obstinate refusal by so many people to accept that it was a commie who killed JFK, and not some “crazy right-winger.”

Maybe Moscow wanted it that way?

In his book Programmed to Kill: Lee Harvey Oswald, the Soviet KGB, and the Kennedy Assassination Ion Mihai Pacepa contends that Lee Harvey Oswald was trained and sent back to the United States to kill Kennedy, after having been secretly received in the Soviet Union as a hero for giving up the operating altitude of Gary Powers’ U-2 overflights. (While in the Marines, Oswald worked as an air traffic controller and had access to that critical information.) Evidently Khrushchev was quite fond of killing foreign leaders that pissed him off.

Pacepa goes on to recount his direct experience as a high-ranking Eastern Bloc intelligence officer in November 1963, watching how the Soviet intelligence/propaganda machine swung into action to point the finger of blame away from Moscow.

He then describes a KGB assassination capability using radioactive dust to cause fatal lung cancer, pointing out how the symptoms before death track very closely with how Jack Ruby died. His point is that for true deniability, Moscow not only had to kill Oswald but also the guy who killed Oswald.

@KWB “I imagine that there were different skill levels of samurai in Japan, some much better than others. But somehow I think that the distance between a highly skilled samurai and mediocre one was greater than an expert shot and a mediocre one”

Wretchard, #5: “It’s principle effect was that it shattered a kind of idyll and thereby contributed over time to the debate over legitimacy which DeLong talks about today.” That should read, “Its principal effect was that it shattered . . . .”

Parallel at 41 comes closest to answering my questions about the Kennedy assassination. I’ll have to get Pacepa’s book, it seems.

If Oswald was indeed arranged for by Soviet Intelligence, though, what the heck was he doing shooting at the old general before-hand? Just setting up cover, I could suppose (if I want to go the conspiracy route).

The thing I couldn’t imagine is WHY the Russians wanted to kill Kennedy. They pushed him around quite nicely on Cuba (Kuber, as Jack pronounced it). Before the Cuban Missile Crisis, we were going to get rid of Castro sooner or later (obviously AFTER the useless Kennedy Admin was history) but Jack and Bobby and “The Best and Brightest” (almost as miserable a lie as “Pro-Choice”) made a deal with the Soviets to leave Castro in place if the Soviets please-purrty-please took their missiles out of Kuber–oh, and we took missiles out of Turkey, too. (Gobble-gobble)

From a Russian perspective, why kill the Goose-that-laid-them-a-golden-egg?

Perhaps the assassination was the first move by the group who pulled the coup that ousted Khrushchev in October 1964? That was less than a year after Jack was killed in Dallas. Maybe they just wanted to tidy up all the loose ends. Nikita K got to live out the rest of his life, anyway. That in itself is curious.

(Long sigh.) I’d like to know the truth of it, before the next life, at least.

One final thought on “conspiracy nuts”: well, there WAS a conspiracy to kill Lincoln, after all. (A miserably poxed/bollixed one, but still, it existed–maybe it was just a front for the big bankers, a group that had a REAL reason for killing the famous vampire slaying prez–I mean, the big bankers were vampires in their own right, so…?)

There was a general Anarchist conspiracy to kill bigshots that helped lead to McKinley’s assassination (among many others, such as the King of Italy, a tough ol’ codger whom they tied to kill a number of times before they finally succeeded) and there was a conspiracy to kill the Archduke Franz Ferdinand–SO, well, gee, just WHAT is so goofy about suspecting (at least) a conspiracy to kill Kennedy?

There ARE times when an idiot gets a shot off, like the wretch that shot Reagan and the idiot that shot Garfield.

But quite often there really IS a conspiracy behind the big-time assassinations.

Indeed, the word ‘assassin’ comes from an special ops group in the Near East infamous for its assassinations–it took the Mongols to put an end to them.

So I think those who automatically place JFK assassination conspiracy buffs in the nuthouse are more than a bit knee-jerk. It is definitely worth consideration and debate (and even a novel, right?).

The discussion on the longbow and English yeomen reminded me of this wonderful piece of history writing about the much neglected battle of Towton – http://hnn.us/node/53672 – the bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil (perhaps 1% of the total population died that day); and an “arrow storm” of half a million sharp sticks.

Okay, I’m guilty of Admiral Kimmel’s mistake: i.e., thinking not what hot-head, war-mongering Japanese military warlords might conclude about attacking America, but rather what a common-sense, pragmatic American would think about attacking America.

After reviewing the reviews of Pacepa’s book on Amazon.co.uk, it seems Khrushchev was already furious at Kennedy over West Berlin, among other things, and the Cuban Missile Crisis pushed Khrushchev over the top in terms of rage and personal hatred toward Kennedy.

Khrushchev not being the steadiest card in the deck, AND with a history of using political assassination, this all explains his motivation to assassinate his rival.

Oswald and the whole operation, apparently, fit quite nicely into standard KGB operation paradigms. (I didn’t know Oswald lived large while in Japan–obviously getting money from somewhere besides his Marine Corps pay. Or that his ‘diary’ had Brit spellings–c’mon–ANYONE who thinks the CIA was behind this needs locked up in the same madhouse as Samuel L. Jackson and that has-been actress who said murderous things about the Republicans).

One has to think like a deranged Commie murderer, I guess. Something I can’t really do.

I just don’t get Screwtape’s Miserific Vision, I guess. Buíochas le Dia!

Shall I be uselessly pedantic (for the Belmont Club) and say that I really fear what our current batch of Leftists might try to do if the elections this November don’t go their way? Truly, I can’t even imagine what they might try.

It’s hard to imagine today but note that JFK attacked the Repubs from the RIGHT, asserting that the Eisenhower Admin was asleep at the switch. That was totally wrong, of course, and the info to prove that was all very highly classified until quite recently decade. But once in office JFK did not add to the defense programs the Eisenhower Admin had created but actually started cancelling some of them.

Nonetheless JFK clearly had a more aggressive stance on the Cold War than did previous Admins. The Bay of Pigs, Cubam Missile Crisis, creation of the Green Berets, focus on increased conventional war capabilities and Vietnam proved that.

The Eisenhower Admin preferred to work quitely behind the scenes. JFK wanted more activist and direct confrontations. I think that worried the Soviets.

And maybe the Soviets heard what JFK told one reporter.

“I notice the lights in the White House recently have been on late, Mr. President. Are you working late that much?”

JFK: “I’m reading Ian Fleming.”

That explains a lot about his foreign policy. “My name’s Kennedy, Jack Kennedy, and I’d like my martini shaken, not stirred.”

My father-in-law was (he died about 10 yrs. ago) a made mob/union guy from NY. I asked him about the JFK assination once and he told me that everyone in NY knew it was a mob hit. I have written here before about that perspective and that the Warren Commission was a coverup because of how it would have unraveled the Kennedy family ties to the 1960 mob delivery of the election.

If properly done the Warren commission would have revealed the corrupt nature of the Dem. party and the illegimaticy of the 1960 election.

oldsj @ 4 – In my opinion a simple “Thank you” is enough. The important insight is that Vietnam vets were not told that the proper response is “You’re welcome”. They were not thanked, they were called “babykillers”.

If the public had behaved with dignity, they would have been allowed to respond with dignity. It is very empowering to be able to “do unto others as you would have done unto you”. By forgiving any imagined debt by those who benefitted by your efforts, you are proving your own worth to yourself.

I learned this when a man I saved from drowning said “Thank you”. After I said “You’re welcome” in response, I felt better.

Docbill, I am almost sure that’s why they shot the poor man… for illegally stealing the election. They should have just marched him outdoors shamefully, denounced his family, and told him to not to do it again. Death sentence was over-kill.

Yeah, well, I dunno, of COURSE real sword fighting is nothing like what you see in movies, and of course real use of a broadsword or katana is not like using a fencing foil. However, “really” using a rapier *is* rather like using a fencing epee. I’m a little skeptical of even the historical books by “masters of defense” on the classic grounds that those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach.

I just picked up Hank Reinhardt’s “Book of Knives”, supposed to be a lifetime’s summary of the subject of knife fighting, published posthumously, and frankly there’s very little content in it. It’s just hard to get a sport or martial art down on paper.

Real swords are heavy, and a foul shot can still win, we get that. Plus, probably 90% of those with swords, have weapons of mediocre quality or worse. And even the best are quickly damaged in real combat with a skilled opponent.

The one point Reinhardt makes many times is that real knife fighting is just not something you want to do. Running away is far preferable, not to mention shooting the guy, but if you must, speed and viciousness are much more important than chivalry cuz the odds are miniscule you’re going to see the chivalry returned. Forget this first blood thing and just carve a big chunk out of your opponent at any opportunity.

Even competitive fencing is seldom won by the prettiest fencers – but even so, I’ve seen some very competent, older fencers hold their own with pure technique and, even if it doesn’t win against younger guys in tournaments nor would it win against younger guys in earnest, it can be very impressive on its own and should never be entirely discounted.

#44-
It has been a while since I read “Musashi”, if memory serves it was his willingness to fight that really set him apart- to close with the foe. For those who have not read Yoshikawa’s book, it is a great read, following Musashi’s rise from a poor rural boy to a respected man of the arts-
The book “Taiko”, by Yoshikawa, is also an excellent read, about Hideyoshi’s rise to power.

6. Don Rodrigo:
I have zero problem believing that a lone gunman in a still-free 1960′s America not as security-conscious as we are now could indeed pull off this killing with a mail-order rifle.

Lee Harvey Oswald did not have to be ‘good marksman’ or a ‘sharpshooter’, he just had to be ‘lucky’. Once.
For a conspiracy to remain secret, and thus successful, many people would have had to remain silent. I find it as hard to believe in that occurrence as in believing that 7 World Trade was brought down by placed charges. Too many fingers in the pie to remain secret. Too many hours of preparation and planning. Just bad luck for the Kennedy family, Jack in particular. No rain == no bubble top on the Lincoln. Back brace == slowness in falling over and out of view.
I haven’t read Hunter’s book, so don’t know what he concluded…
tom

OT- for those worried about a VP Bid for Hilary, it appears it’s not in the cards. She won’t even be at the convention next week – her itinerary has her in the Cook Islands, Vladivostok and China. Unless it’s a really big ruse- it’s looks like the Bamster is sticking with Plugs. From JammieWearingFools via Ricochet.

I’m told frequently by other Vietnam Vets “Welcome home.” It actually puts a lump in my throat. Civilians, noticing the patches on my motorcycle vest, say “Thank’s for your service”. I say “You’re welcome”, and feel some pride in being able to say that.

I had always wanted to be a Marine. At least since I was 9 or 10 anyway. In truth, the combat wasn’t about God & country as much as it was about duty to oneself and fellow Marines.

I’m thankful for the opportunity to have served. And there are some days I actually miss the adrenaline spike of combat.

ChrisVJ@23 — Maybe a law should be passed requiring us all to practice shooting for an hour a week

At a dollar per round, one round every two minutes, that hour costs thirty bucks. Of course, with the federal government ordering 1.5 trillion rounds in the last few months, that thirty will soon rise to forty five, if you can find a supply.

Remember “Sam Colt made men equal but it was the rifle that won the West.”
Their are an awful lot of riflemen in the US and a pretty fair number of them have skill and/or experience. Then there is the shot gun. Still used by the military and still a prime weapon used for home defense.
Look up “Three Gun” shooting matches.

63 @ JDMilw: I worked with many ex-military guys for over 13 years. Excellent people almost all of them; fewer morons than the civilians. Very mission oriented and used to dealing with BS. I would have followed more than a few of them through Hell in a gasoline-soaked suit.

The Air Force, Army, and Navy guys would say “I was in the Air Force, Army, or Navy”.

As a M203 grenadier(XM203 to be thoroughy accurate) who had won a Laird Fellowship to the Asian Riviera, I take issue with above poster who says direct fire is somehow superior to indirect fire. I suspect he equates indirect fire with air support or naval gunfire or some such.

Sam Colt was known as the great equalizer because his handgun did not take the time and funding to achieve a reasonable degree of lethality that fencing did.

Maybe the world knew who the finest swordsman in all France was and that swordsman’s results were a foregone conclusion, but no one could be sure who might get lucky with a pistol. And so an armed society became a very polite society

TV turned it all into who could draw his gun the fastest, but that was all balderdash.

My Daddy, who never mentioned any kind of conspiracy theory, listened to the news and remarked “Someone didn’t trust Oswald to shut up.” I was only 10, and didn’t understand it then, but I never forgot it.

Did I say a trillion and half rounds? I must have been federalized while asleep. Various federal agencies purchased ‘only’ one and a half billion rounds in last few months. Almost five rounds for each man, woman and child in the nation.

President LooneyTunes has struck again. The Government yesterday released new mandatory fuel efficiency standards for automobiles. From AP:
“The average fuel economy must reach 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, up from 28.6 mpg at the end of last year.”

I can’t understand why they just didn’t go really big and ask for 154.5 mpg while they were at it. 154.5 is just as realistic as 54.5. We have only been at this fuel economy thing for about 40 years now, and should have wrung out every last drop of efficiency and we supposedly got it up to 28.6, ( which I don’t believe it’s actually that high) so that extra 25.9 mpg should be nothing. Right. In 13 years.

Isn’t there an inverted parabolic cost/efficiency curve someplace which shows that as you get closer to 100% efficiency the cost goes – well – parabolic. But I guess you would have had to “build” something sometime, someplace or mebbe even worked in the evil private sector or something to know that stuff. Oh – I forgot- Buraq and his government buddies have avoided that private sector thing like the plaque.

I think Mittens should use these new fantasy land fuel efficiency standards as a parable for the entire moronic Obama economic program in one of his adds. Even the simplest moron should be able to get we just can’t demand some stratospheric fuel efficiency standards because Buraq thinks it’s good optics in this election cycle.

@71. You are on the right track. A gallon of gasoline, depending on grade and additives, contains about 144,000 btu’s per gallon. (Higher heating value). About 10% is consumed in the combustion process and is not obtainable (used up in the chemical reaction and the need to move water vapor out.) On its best day an internal combustion engine is 30% efficient, loosing most of the balance out the radiator and miscellany. The drive train looses another 5 to 10% leaving as little as 20% at the drive wheel. 20% of 144,000 is 28,800. One horsepower is approximately 2500 btu’s, thus a gallon burned over one hour is 10 hpHr.

What the regulators are getting close to requiring is that we get more than 144,000 btu’s per gallon ’cause they said so.

Isn’t there an inverted parabolic cost/efficiency curve someplace which shows that as you get closer to 100% efficiency the cost goes – well – parabolic.

Sure, but the crowd running the EPA these days thinks a parabola is one of those morality stories Aesop was always going on about, and that stuff is all relative.

Besides, it’s not their problem to make it work, that’s for the kulaks working at the car companies.

But I second your idea of Romney using it as an add. Show a bunch of partying flacks sitting around a room making up numbers and laughing. “Let’s make it 50 mpg! No, 60! Why not 150, what do we care?” At that point, some clueless but earnest looking noob at the meeting pipes up “but, those numbers are impossible. It’ll just drive all the car companies out of business!”

The party stops for moment and all the old flacks look at the noob in bemused surprise. Finally someone says “well, yeah. That’s the idea…”

#69 MSO your numbers are about right. What I find troubling is the huge number of hollow point bullets. That means civilian kill caps.

I have heard the usual budgetary spend it or lose it. That doesn’t wash they always spend it. And, as for the “hollow point bullet doesn’t pass through the person.” That is also BS. A hollow point can easily produce a through and though bullet wound. I knew a 270 Lbs man who was shot with .38 hollow point in his huge belly (his wife shot him in the front). It went right out his back. Using hollow points is dangerous at indoor pistol ranges (assuming the DHS is planning to have target practice). And, so on.

So, what is DHS ammo’g up for? A riot? A mass immigration crime wave? Disgruntled military personnel coming back from the Stan? A general police crack down on civilians for some unknown reason?

”Like a super-heated liquid waiting for some nucleation point to flash the whole shebang into steam.”

The nucleation explosion point has more to do with economics than philosophy.

It is a function of the motivations of the vast bulk of the Dems, which is not ideological or philosophical but rather an interest in making damn sure that the government checks keep showing up no matter what.

We at BC have hashed through this thoroughly, over and over. Yes, a sizeable chunk of the opposition is into philosophical motivation for its own sake – people like grievance studies extremists, radical feminists and radical gay groups, doctrinaire collectivists, etc. They are a factor and must be dealt with.

Far greater in number, and posing a real and present danger, are the recipients of regular government income streams, be it employment, welfare, or “private” rent-seeking. They do not have a particular philosophical axe to grind but will go along with anything that maintains the regular checks. Ideology and the accompanying slogans are not so much an understood way of life and a passion as they are a set of magic clothes to wear that keep the magic checks coming. Consider the cries of “racism” applied to any center/right ideas for policy. There is no factual basis for these accusations. But those receiving a regular government check (who, it must be pointed out, are almost entirely composed of Dems, outside the military) have figured out that a Pavlovian response keeps the checks coming. Throughout most of my lifetime, whenever someone proposed changes that threatened the magic checks, they reflexively brayed “R-A-A-A-A-A-CISM!” and the threat to the income went away due to timidity on the part of the center/right. Trust me, people, if shouting “PARSNIPS!” had worked in a similar fashion, that’s what they would have shouted. The facts or philosophy surrounding the accusations are not important, only that the magic clothes removed the perceived threat to the income stream.

The problem now is that the magic clothing has started losing its potency. So the left is increasing its fire rate and caliber hoping to compensate. And like a guy who pushes an elevator button faster and harder thinking that somehow doing so will bring the elevator faster (technical term: elacceleration), the left is shouting faster and harder. At one time the only thing described as racism was racism. Now anything that is not an approved left-of-center idea is. A corollary of this is that anything that might disprove the narrative that all of the center/right is motivated primarily or solely by racism must be excised. Witness MSNBC and the way that the word “racism” drops so easily from their lips, followed by an Orwellian refusal to show anyone at the Repub convention who was a minority, in order to preserve the narrative for their viewers.

We can extrapolate from this shameful episode how Obama will act at his convention and for the rest of the campaign. As our host likes to point out, there will be an almost daily doubling-down on accusations that the Repubs and their allies are motivated purely by racism. I expect that his speech in NC will have him overtly saying so. He knows his audience and he knows their fears and motivations. They still believe in the power of the magic clothes and their ability to keep the checks coming and alleviate anxiety about interruption of the same. “Those evil Repubs want to take away the checks, but scream “RACIST!” and vote for me and the magic clothes will make it all go away!”

And should Romney win, these people, wound up tighter than banjo strings with their fear of government checkus interruptus, will in fact riot. That will be your flash point.

Of course the 54mpg is PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE and yet they claim the Prius gets it right now (DOT also mandates a 3000 pound vehicle, which puts an upper limit on mileage of, oh I dunno, about 40mpg with a 20HP engine that would have a top speed of about 55mph … but apparently all the car companies have found a new trick and are announcing new mpg this year about 5mpg higher than last year). So this legislation would basically mandate we all join in the LIE of hybrid mileage and an extra $15,000 per vehicle.

One more thing for R/R to repeal … if the car companies don’t just take it to court as overreach without legislation, or simply ignore it and let the EPA take them to court and defend.

Some of these comments prompt me to muse about the curious fact that JFK was killed by a commie and his brother, RFK, was killed by a muslim Palestinian. Ironic that the leftist Camelot was obliterated by representatives of two of their present-day ally groups. Teddy was severely crippled by his little driving mishap, the key instrument being a dead campaign worker. The left nevertheless persisted in their delusion by relaxing the behavioral norm to excuse Teddy and thus excuse and embrace the likes of Clinton, Barney Frank, Sharpton, Jackson, etc. The left has shown the weakness (and danger) of superficial illusion as political theory.